This was nothing I wanted to do. Which might suggest that I was past the point where I should stop doing what Tinnie wanted me to stop doing.
If I couldn't handle the ugliness anymore I should get busy being the neutered door guard I'd seen myself as before this came rumbling down.
Among the Civil Guard, Belinda's friends, a guy from Morley's crew and one from the Children of the Light, I found six of the five people Old Bones claimed were watching. John Stretch's guys nabbed the extra.
First was a red top right across the street. He was uninjured but his mind had gone blank. Which was the story over and over. The last man, a tin whistle posted on the steps to Mrs. Cardonlos' house, was awake but deeply confused.
I found one dead man, a door up the street from my place. Nobody knew him. Probably an unlucky guy who thought he'd found a nice place to spend a homeless night.
I approached the Cardonlos homestead, wakened the widow. She pretended that I was disturbing her rest with my assault on her door. She had not aged well and had not handled that well. She had become a cosmetics huckster's dream, a younger man's nightmare, and an object of derision for attractive younger women.
I've seen so many like her that I suspected a disease strikes women of a certain age. Badly colored hair. Makeup laid on with a trowel. Perfume dense as a swamp's miasma. And a ready, pathetic simper for any man young enough to remember what it's like to stand upright.
She did not simper at me. She recognized me. "It's started, hasn't it?"
"Excuse me? What's started?"
"The death of tranquility." She freighted that with omen, like she was proclaiming the twilight of the gods. "There hasn't been any trouble here since you followed your trollop up the Hill."
She didn't have that right. My trollop was actually a lady. And she had nothing to do with the Hill. "I'm back. You should petition the Director to put you back on full time. Meantime, he needs to know what happened tonight. All his people were hurt. One man died. He'll recall what happened on the north side."
Mrs. Cardonlos gulped some air. She wanted to make that all my fault but didn't know how.
I pointed. "That one down there has lost his hearing."
The veteran lady gulped again. "The excitement is back."
"Get word to the Al-Khar. I'll be busy getting the casualties together and trying to help them." Extra info she could include in her report, to encourage a quick response.
Relway would want his troops exposed to the Dead Man as briefly as possible.
50
Furious Tide of Light returned before the Guard showed. She was morose and uncommunicative. I wasted no questions. The Dead Man would winkle out anything of interest.
I did suggest, "How about you help with these guys that got hurt?" I had three pulled together in one place. Keeping them there was problematic. They wanted to wander off.
Singe had gone to find her brother. She returned with a half dozen ratmen who helped collect the other casualties and wrangled those already rounded up. Singe was antsy. She wanted to get on the trail of the thing that had started the excitement. But she restrained herself in front of the Windwalker, at the gentle urging of the Dead Man.
Furious Tide of Light went through the motions halfheartedly, aiding the injured. She must have found something she had not wanted to find, following that whatever to its lair.
When she wasn't being her brother's surrogate on the spot Singe glared at the Windwalker and gave me looks, demanding, "When are we going to get going? The trail is getting cold."
I told her, "I don't think we will."
"Why not?"
"Three reasons. We are forbidden. My mission is to protect Morley. And Old Bones already knows."
She understood. But still she made hissing noises to express her exasperation.
The Windwalker's healing skills were basic. She reached her limits quickly. But she did stabilize everyone.
Nobody else died but the man I had found dead stayed that way.
The man who came out on behalf of the Guard was one Rocklin Synk, previously unknown to me. He was rational and reasonable. He didn't automatically assume everybody who wasn't him was guilty of something. He didn't treat people like they'd already been convicted of aggravated capital treason with a garlic pickle on the side.
We were headed into the graveyard shift when he showed. We had a smaller audience than seemed likely. Evidently people didn't get out of bed to be entertained by the misfortunes of others anymore.
The time and pitiful audience may have helped shape Synk's attitude. Maybe it wasn't worth the work, putting on a hard-ass show.
Still, any true believer in the Relway vision must start from the premise that anyone who isn't Deal Relway or one of his henchmen is likely an agent of chaos and a harbinger of the coming darkness. Investigations are built on such foundations, their function to find or create support for the initial supposition. Synk was the kind of guy who palled around with you till you handed him the end of the rope he would use to stretch your neck.
I kept him near the house while we talked.
Old Bones soon let me know why this man had been sent.
This is Mr. Synk's first field assignment. His functions at the Al-Khar have involved payroll accounting and personnel management. His task tonight is to learn as much as possible without revealing the Guard attitude toward this case.
Meaning the Civil Guard did have an attitude they didn't want expressed. "I don't care. All I'm interested in is taking care of my friend till he's ready for release into the wild."
By now the Guard had established an overwhelming presence. Ratmen were scarce. The Windwalker got inside before she was recognized. I was outside with nobody but Singe and swarming red tops.
I developed the suspicion that nobody interested in this mess was really looking the other way just because some unidentified entity insisted. Not privately.
I was a gracious host. I repeated my story over and over. Synk insisted that he had to have the fragment of a tentacle. Singe hustled off, brought it out. It was spoiled already. The bucket contained noxious brown soup with chunks of meat quickly melting. It did not smell like fresh seafood.
I didn't care. That was what I expected. I wanted to get back inside and find out why the Windwalker was distraught.
Rocklin Synk knew more about the Garrett friends and family than Garrett did. I started to give him hell for loading all the downed watchers into his Al-Khar wagons. He cut me off. "Will we be able to borrow your tracker?"
Singe was close enough to hear. "I don't have a tracker. One of my associates is a skilled tracker. If you want to avail yourself of her talent you'll have to work it out with her."
Synk did not like that at all.
Old Bones assured me that Synk was not a bad human being. My own impression was that he was about as decent as they came inside the Guard. But he was a definite product of TunFaire's human culture. He did not consider ratfolk people. There was a solid chance he didn't consider members of any of the Other Races real people.
The thinking underlying the whole Human Rights movement was unfashionable at the moment but it hadn't gone away. It could come back fast. It needed only one ugly nudge.
I added, "Though I wouldn't ordinarily presume to tell her what to do, I'd insist she got her fee up front because she's dealing with the Guard."
"Sir?" Taken totally off balance.
"Your runty boss has a habit of expecting people to help him for the sheer joy of participating in the process. It be-hooves those addicted to food and shelter to have the foresight to collect their pay before they do the work."